


Mess is Mine

by cpacesowboyed



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Pet Names, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Watford (Simon Snow), References to Depression, Simon Snow Loves Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Gay for Simon Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27523342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpacesowboyed/pseuds/cpacesowboyed
Summary: There are bad days, and then there are worse days. The chosen one is not an exception.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch & Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Kudos: 34





	Mess is Mine

Here’s the thing about depression: it’s hard to live with and it’s even harder being in a relationship with someone who has it; both platonic and romantic. But that doesn’t mean you just give up. There are bad days, of course there are. Hell, sometimes there are bad weeks, plural, and that’s exactly what Simon Snow is going through now.

We all have our trauma. Whether it’s your mother committing suicide in front of you and then proceeding to live a majority of your life knowing everyone who was ever supposed to love you would be and probably are absolutely disgusted with what you’ve become or being forced into deadly mission after deadly mission for some asshole who never really cared about you, the scars are there, physical and mental. So it makes sense that Snow is lying on his messy bed, in a constant cycle of being drunk and desperate to being sober and miserable. Right now, he’s the latter, and Baz isn’t sure that he prefers either.

The last time he saw Snow was a month ago, before he had to go back home for Old Family reasons. He didn't expect to get back to Simon going through an "episode" by the time he got back but despite what he often liked to believe, Baz Pitch was wrong. Wrong about so many goddamn things. 

It’s summer, Baz and Penny have just graduated, and the boy of his dreams loves him back, so why doesn’t he feel happy? He should feel happy, he thinks. Maybe he is happy in a general sense of the word, but the sight in front of him just makes him feel _so_ wrecked, and not the good kind of wrecked. Not the “makes your knees weak and your skin feel hot” wrecked that he usually feels when he’s around Simon. 

“Snow,” He says, closing the bedroom door behind him. He just lies there, staring at a spot on the wall, surrounded in a pile of blankets. “Simon.”

Simon looks up at him and the blanket stretches out in front of him. He falls into Simons arms. It'd been a long time since he last got to feel this.

“I sent you a text saying that I was coming by." Baz whispers into the crook of Simon's neck. "Did you get it?”

Simon shakes his head, “Phones dead.”

“Ah, well,” Baz pulls away, lifting the bag of sour cherry scones. “I’m already here, and I come bearing gifts.”

“Did Penny send you?" He asks. "I don’t need a babysitter."

“Is it a crime to visit my boyfriend?”

"It is if I pulled you away from important family stuff."

Baz sighs. No, Penny did not send him. She only sent him a text telling him that Simon had been in his room all week, barely eating, and that was enough for him to rush over. If he really looked at Simon now he could see how he was slowly reverting back to how he used to look at the beginning of every school year. "Even if you _did_ pull me away from important family stuff, I wouldn't care. Do you really think that I want to sit in that house all day and listen to a bunch of old mages try to dictate the lives of a new generation of mages?"

"Ah." Simon says. "Glad I could be of service, then."

Seeing Snow again was like having the sun come out again after a long winter. After getting over the initial wave of happiness that came with having him around, he realized that everything around him was in great need of cleaning. “Crowley, when was the last time you took a shower?”

“...Last week?” 

"I-" Baz starts, but finds himself unable to finish. “Are you asking me this or telling me?”

“I don’t see why it even matters. I’m not going to die if I don’t bathe. When I was in foster care I would go weeks without-”

“Please, don’t finish that sentence. I'm begging you.”

“Baz-”

“I hope you know that you’re getting absolutely zero scones until you clean yourself.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but doing things that require...I don’t know...living,” he rolls his eyes for emphasis, “take effort. Effort requires motivation, which I currently have none of. Are you really going to hoard baked goods just because I refuse shower?”

“Yes, I am. And it’s a good thing I have enough for the both of us, love.”

*

It’s a small bathroom, really. There’s a standalone bathtub tucked into one corner with a showerhead hung up on the wall, a toilet next to a sink with a few rolls of toilet paper stacked on top of the tank, a blue fuzzy carpet that Bunce bought, and a variety of soaps and body washes that have accumulated on the floor at the foot of the tub thanks to Baz’s overnight stays and Penelope's general Penelope-ness. 

He plugs the drain, pours in a generous amount of bubbles, and turns on the water. Simon likes it unbearably hot. As he goes through the motions of drawing a bath for someone else, he realizes that it was absolutely true, what he said. That he had enough motivation for the both of them. Baz could take care of Simon until Simon was capable of taking care of himself. But was it really taking care of him if he loves him? Isn’t this just what he’s supposed to do?

“Alright, darling,” he pulls a couple of clothes out of Simon’s dresser. Ones that he knows they’re clean because they’re his. His boxers, his Watford Football jumper, his socks, his sleep shorts. All his, but he can’t help but notice how they smell like Simon after being here for just a short amount of time. Like fire and some generic washing powder they kept in their apartment. “Are you going to go willingly or do I have to carry you?”

“I-” he stutters and Baz can barely see his face turn red. “Are you offering?”

“I thought that was clear,” he crossed his arms across his chest.

“I don’t think you could carry me if you tried.”

“Are you really challenging me right now?”

“Depends, do you accept?”

“You’re going to see just how ripped I am and then you’re going to fall in love with me all over again and regret all the times you have ever called me scrawny and-”

Simon holds out his arms and it’s progress. At least now, he’s talking. He’s joking around. “Stop talking and just do it already. That is, if you even can.”

“Okay, you big baby.” He sets the clothes down at the foot of the bed and makes his way over to Simon, putting a hand under his leg and another around his back. Before he can lift, he’s being pulled down to the mattress. As much as he loves being on top of the boy he’s been hopelessly in love with for the past 8 years, now’s not the time. “Are we seriously doing this?”

Simon smiles for the first time in what seems like forever. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” He reaches up to cross his arms around Baz’s back, pulling him down so that they’re chest to chest. Baz is tempted, he really is, to stay here and just feel Simon's heartbeat against his own. “Absolutely none at all.”

“You want to know something?” he sits up, completely straddling Simon’s lap. “I’d be totally into this if you didn’t smell like a week's worth of body odor.”

“Are you sure you’re not completely into it now? Because it totally looks like you’re into it now.”

“No,” he leans down to kiss him and instantly regrets it. “Because your breath is absolutely horrid.” 

*

Baz allows Simon his privacy. Trusts him enough to go and take his own bath. Then, because he doesn't know how long it's been since these sheets and have been washed and because he knows it’s been exactly too long before any of his clothes have been washed, he gathers them up in a bundle inside of his arms and throws them in the washing machine.

Growing up, he would always just spell his things clean or let one of the housekeepers take care of it. It’s strange, the indescribable thing he’s feeling now. He gets busy dressing the bare mattress with clean linens and vacuuming the floor, picking up any big garbage he manages to find. At this point, Baz feels more like a maid than a boyfriend and then that gets his mind racing to places it really should not go. Because he’s disturbed. Ask anyone.

The room, he decides, is clean enough, so he decides to head toward the bathroom. He knocks, waits for the okay, and enters. The bubbles are still high in the tub, and Simon is sitting there, head back, looking relaxed.

“Did you wash yourself?”

“Yes, mother.”

“And you’re hair?”

Simon runs a hand through his curls, dampening them where his palm and fingers touch. “Do I really need to?”

“Yes, you really need to wash your hair. Not daily, because doing that kills it, but weekly. At least, for your hair type.”

“Effort, Baz.”

He kneels at the edge of the tub and says: “Enough for the both of us, love.”

It’s a process, washing someone else's hair. You have to worry about whether or not you’re getting soap in their eyes and it’s a lot tougher to tend to someone else's needs than it is to your own. He’s pretty sure that every time he manages to pull out a knot, it hurts. It doesn’t help that months ago, Simon grew wings and a tail.

When he finishes, he wipes his hands off on a towel. “Feel better?” 

“I feel more like a wet dog.” He lifts his hand out of the water, “and my fingers are pruney.”

“Just be glad you don’t smell like a wet dog.” Baz hands him the towel and leaves to switch the clothes into the dryer and allow Simon the opportunity to change alone. 

*

They meet back in the hallway and Baz notices that Simon isn’t wearing a shirt. 

“There weren’t holes for my wings,” he says, pushing the jumper into his hands. Simon asks, “Now can I have scones?”

So they’re lying in a bed, cartoons playing on his laptop. Finn the Human just warded off an attack from a wave of zombies, Simon is shoveling scones into his mouth while Baz is spelling butter hot onto them, unable to keep up. Baz thinks that he can’t help it; being completely in love with and enamored by this boy. There were times when he thought he couldn’t possibly have anything like this. He recalls that night in the forest when he thought about ending it all and how when he needed it most, Simon was there. It’s not as he thought that love can somehow “fix you”, but sometimes, you could lean on it when there was nothing else there. That night seemed so far away now.

Unconsciously, he reaches his hand up and begins tracing the lines of Simon’s face. Counting the freckles and moles, creating constellations. Finally, he makes his way up to his cheek, cupping it. 

“What?” Simon asks, leaning into the touch, trapping Baz’s hand with his own.

“Seriously, what are you thinking about? And don’t say nothing because you’re always thinking about something.” He picks up a lock of Baz’s hair, twirling it around his finger. “You’re always scheming, I know it. Granted, I’m somehow always wrong about what you’re scheming about-”

“Hold up-what? What was I ever scheming about?”

Simon leans down close. “I always thought you were scheming about world domination or something like that. Your dad taking over the entire world of mages. Also, probably you killing me. But no, you just had to go on this seven year plan of making me fall in love with you.”

“Is that what I did? I wasn’t aware.”

“You know perfectly well what you did,” and there Baz is matching him every step of the way. Only when they’re centimeters apart does Simon pull his head out of reach, causing Baz’s fangs to pop. 

“You’re insufferable.” He says through a lisp.

“Every time you say that I believe you a little less,” and he’s smiling because he’s a little shit and he knows it and because this is the most “himself” he must have felt in a while. It’s that smile that makes Baz feel sad. It hurts to look at Simon when he’s happy, and it also hurts to look at him when he’s depressed. All in all, it hurts to look at Simon in general because no matter what, it feels like his heart is going to burst or like he’ll combust. “I missed you,” he says, still playing with Baz’s hair.

“What are you talking about? I’m right here.” He takes Simon’s other hand and places it over his heart. Truth be told, it doesn't matter where Simon touches him; he relishes in it every time. His heart beat speeds up, he can’t help it. Despite all the anti-alive vampire propaganda there is in existence, Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch does have a beating heart.

“Not like that,” Simon says, moving his hand down to Baz’s stomach and _oh,_ he’s missed him too. “I mean that I miss you when I’m not me. When I’m all kinds of fucked up and-”

Things are getting depressing. Sometimes your brain spirals into dark places that seem impossible to climb out of and then, when you finally _do_ manage to crawl back into the light, you have absolutely no recollection of how you even ended up in such a wretched state in the first place. He knows that this is what Simon is feeling now but he can’t think of anything to say to make it better. Maybe there is no way to make it better.

“Simon. Love, darling. Look at me-” He sits up and looks him in the eyes. These blue things that are deeper than any ocean. Baz feels like he’s drowning in them every time. “There is absolutely nothing to miss and there is never going to be, I promise.”

Then, there’s silence and Baz hopes that he's reassured. Really, what was there to miss? Baz was never going to leave, he was sure of that. He’d waited around long enough for Simon, so what was a couple of shitty days? Nothing, really. They had plenty of years ahead of them to make up for missed time. 

“I don’t understand you. I keep trying to, but I just can’t figure out why you would stick around with a mess like me.”

“You absolute dunce,” he doesn’t care that his fangs are still out. He’s leaning in to kiss him like it’s the first time, because really, when it comes to Simon Snow, every time feels like the first. Something has to click into place. He wants to tell Simon that he’s the sun, and that he can’t help but crash into him. That he’d burn over and over again if it meant just spending another minute around him.

“What was that for?”

“Calling you a dunce or kissing you?”

Simon considers for a moment. “Both.”

“I called you a dunce because you’re acting like a dunce. I’m not "sticking around". That makes it sound like I’m only tolerating you until some better option appears, which is impossible because let’s be honest, there is no better option. Fate quite literally bound us together when we were like, eleven, remember? We’ve seen each other at our worst. Broken, barely keeping it together, but even more than that, we’ve seen each other at our best. I know full well what I got myself into when we established this relationship and if you think I’m going to give it up just because you have it in your thick skull that I’m going to take off as soon as things get rough and scary then you’re dumber than I originally thought you were. You told me that you were going to be my terrible boyfriend. You do not get to back out of that so easily.” 

Simon just sits there, shocked. Baz adds: “Also, I kissed you because I really like kissing you. I like it a lot, Simon Snow.”

“Yeah but what if one day you get sick of having a terrible boyfriend?” He finally asks.

“Impossible.”

“Hypothetically, then.”

“Then I’d just have to find a new way to love it again. I think I’m more than capable.”

There's a moment where Simon looks like he wants to reach out his hands and then there's the moment when he actually does it, completely wrapping Baz in a hug. 

“I’m still going to be all kinds of fucked up,” he whispers, and Baz knows it. They both would be, possibly forever, but that’s the point of healing. As you grow up, you don’t stay soft forever. Certain things hurt you, and you learn to harden specific edges. Sometimes you even get cracked, but not broken, never broken. Not as long as you’re still here; alive and breathing. “I don’t know if I know how not to be.”

“If you haven’t noticed, we both are very fucked up human beings. That’s not going to stop me from wanting you. It never has, and it never will.”

Then the sun sets, and they finish off the last of the scones, and Baz is just happy that he was able to get rid of any doubt Simon had about his capability of this relationship. Baz is even happier that he helped him have a good day after the myriad of bad ones.

Penny texts Simon at about one in the morning, saying that she wasn't coming home tonight.

“When did that turn on?” He asks, flipping off the ringer to stop the noise from the abundance of notifications he’s getting.

“I plugged it in when you were in the bath.”

Neither of them realized it had gotten this late and Baz figures it’s probably best to just stay the night. The laptop died hours ago and is set down on the floor. It’s all so comfortable and he cant help but think that _this_ , this is everything.

There were times when he dreamed of it, the closeness between them, and even though they’d been together for the better part of a year, he still couldn’t believe that it was real. 

Simon sets his phone down; he can catch up on notifications when it’s not an ungodly hour of the night. They’re drifting off to sleep, but he still manages to mumble, “Hey, thank you. And also, I’m sorry.”

“About what, exactly?”

“You, having to deal with me today, like I’m a kid. Actually, no one even took care of me when I was a kid either so…”

“Snow, stop that.”

“Stop what?” He sounds genuinely confused.

“Because, it’s not dealing with you. It’s not me forcing myself to do things I don’t want to do because I think you’re going to go off the deep end. It’s like a see-saw.” He waves his finger in the air and Simon mocks the motion.

“A see-saw?”

“When I’m down, you’ll pull me up and vice versa.”

“But wouldn’t that mean that the other one has to go...down just to lift the other up?”

“Yikes,” he sighs, “terrible analogy. You get what I’m trying to say, though.”

Simon pulls Baz in close, closing his eyes. “Do I?”

“Yes.”

“Okay but-”

“Hush, now.”

“I just-”

“Simon.”

“Baz?”

“Here.”

**Author's Note:**

> was this completely self indulgent and barely proofread and something posted to forget about wayward son? yes.


End file.
